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On Monday, November 13, celebrated fantasy writer and critic Elizabeth Hand reads from her fiction collection Saffron and Brimstone. The Washington Post writes, "Hand's work is pulsing with tension throughout, charged with its own chilling luminosity." Hand will be introduced by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow. 11-05-2017http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2949

On Monday, October 30, celebrated author Diane Ackerman will read from The Zookeeper’s Wife at Bard College. This little-known true story of World War II enjoyed months as the New York Times No. 1 nonfiction bestseller, was the basis for a 2017 feature film of the same title, and received the Orion Book Award, which honored it as “a groundbreaking work of nonfiction, in which the human relationship to nature is explored in an absolutely original way through looking at the Holocaust.” Ackerman will be introduced by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow. The reading, presented as part of Morrow’s Innovative Contemporary Fiction Reading (ICFR) series, takes place at 2:30 p.m. at Weis Cinema in the Bertelsmann Campus Center and will be followed by a Q&A. It is free and open to the public; no reservations are required. 10-18-2017http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2943

Author Carmen Maria Machado has received the Bard Fiction Prize for her debut short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties. In the collection, long-listed for the 2017 National Book Award and a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, Machado shapes startling, genre-bending narratives that map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. Machado’s residency at Bard College is for the fall 2018 semester, during which time she will continue her writing, meet informally with students, and give a public reading. 10-15-2017http://www.bard.edu/bfp/ Photo: Tom Storm

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“The Order of Lenin: ‘Find Some Truly Hard People’,” by Jonathan Brent, was published by The New York Times in May 2017. A provocative, unprecedented anthology featuring original short stories and art from some of today’s most acclaimed writers and … Continue reading →Posted on 29 November 2017 | 9:00 pm

The Literature Program at Bard is free from the barriers that are often set up between critical and creative engagement, between different national literatures, or between the study of language and the study of the range of intellectual, historical, and imaginative dimensions to which literature is changing forms persistently refer.

If language is among our most expressive media, our most thoughtful media, then its careful study can only enrich our communication with each other: present, past, and future. The study of literature is grounded in the study of words and syntax: how we make meaning in language and how language makes meaning in us.